Gu Xiong: The Remains of a Journey
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Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art 205-268 Keefer Street (Sun Wah Centre), Vancouver, British Columbia V6A 1X5
Gu Xiong, "The Remains of a Journey," 2020
Join us for An Online Opening Reception of "The Remains of a Journey" with Gu Xiong!
Due to the most recent COVID-19 health and safety regulations announced by the Provincial Government on November 7, 2020, we will be moving the Opening Reception of "Gu Xiong: The Remains of a Journey" from the physical reception into a digital opening hosted via Zoom on Friday, November 13, 2020, from 6 to 7:30 PM (Vancouver time).
No registration is required. The artist will be in attendance and will be in conversation with the exhibition curators Henry Heng Lu and Steven Dragonn.
If you have registered for a time slot for the now-cancelled physical opening reception, thank you much for your support and interest; please join us online!
Centre A and Canton-sardine will remain open during our regular gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6 PM. These hours, however, may be subject to change as we monitor the COVID-19 development closely.
Exhibition Locations
Unit 205 (Centre A) and Unit 071 (Canton-sardine)
268 Keefer Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6A 1X5
About the Exhibition
The Remains of a Journey brings visibility to historic sites that have gradually faded away from official narratives as their physical remnants have disappeared from the landscape. During the mid-19th century, Chinese immigrants began settling along the coast of British Columbia to work the gold and coal mines and to build the transcontinental railway that would form the backbone of Canada. Today, there are only a few remaining structures of the many settlements that spread throughout the province. Yet, the immigrants’ collective memories have lived on in the community in the form of stories, artifacts, and monuments.
Comprised of a new body of multimedia works, along with archival materials sourced from multiple official archives, the exhibition will revive three historic sites across British Columbia that bear the untold struggles of the Chinese immigrants: the destroyed "bone house" of Harling Point, the Leper Colony of D'Arcy Island, and the burnt-down Chinatown in Cumberland. It will take the form of an immersive installation that reanimates these early Chinese immigrant experiences during an era of exclusionist policies. Part of the artist's ongoing investigation into the living conditions of the early Chinese immigrants since 2011, the exhibition sparks an uncanny parallel to the anti-Chinese sentiment prevailing during the current coronavirus pandemic.
Gu Xiong works with painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, digital imagery, text, performance art and installation. Throughout his career as a visual artist, Gu Xiong has drawn on both his own life experience as an immigrant and his active engagement with migrant communities around the world. His works have been globally exhibited and recognized for transforming and deepening the understanding of the migrant experience, in terms of home, geography, globalization, and labour.
Part II of the exhibition exploring the Canada Village in Kaiping, China, the New Westminster Chinese Cemetery, and the Mountain View Chinese Cemetery, will be on display at Canton-sardine (Unit 071, 268 Keefer Street) simultaneously.
This two-part exhibition is curated by Henry Heng Lu and Steven Dragonn.